Category: Satan and Policy of Evil

Deceptions and Distractions #2

Saturday, November 25, 2023

“Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law” (Romans 2:17-20 KJV).

May we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to believe a lesson from Israel’s ancient history….

Consider Deuteronomy chapter 4: “[5] Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. [6] Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. [7] For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? [8] And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?”

As the Gentiles watched, Israel was to demonstrate the values and life of the one true God (see today’s Scripture). The Jews held the codified record of what the LORD believed and did. If they walked by faith in that Divine revelation, Satan’s policy of evil in the Earth would be limited. Satan is no dummy. While he could not eliminate the Hebrew Bible, he could—and did!—use assorted methods to sidetrack Israel from it.

Go to a student listening to a teacher. Wave your hand so he or she looks toward your direction. No longer focused on the teacher, the person stares at you, and you exclaim, “Made you look!” This is Satan’s primary tactic: using distractions or counterfeits to get our eyes and minds off God’s words to us. This led to the downfall of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter 3, the spiritual destruction of Israel, and the debilitation of the Church the Body of Christ….

Deceptions and Distractions #1

Friday, November 24, 2023

“Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law” (Romans 2:17-20 KJV).

May we have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to believe a lesson from Israel’s ancient history….

Long ago, a female driver noticed a pregnant lady and a little boy begging at a major intersection. Their sign carried a tragic message, basically describing their extreme financial difficulties. Passersby gave the pregnant lady donations because they felt sorry for her. Later, the driver returned to the scene to see the lady and the boy getting into an exotic car. The male driver of this expensive car was laughing with the pregnant lady as they counted the money. In other words, it was a clever scam! The pregnant woman was not poor at all. By the time the car’s license-plate number was traced, the people had vacated their upscale apartment and disappeared altogether. Sadly, such thieves take resources from truly needy souls.

Would it not be nice if everyone just got along? There would be no war or violent loss of human life. What if everyone told the truth? We could trust everyone without hesitation. Would it not be wonderful if all people actually cared for one another? There would be no malice, greed, poverty, laziness, stealing, adultery, or coveting. Our prisons would be totally empty, our morgues would be less busy, and our cemeteries would be much smaller. It would be like living on another planet, a place completely unrecognizable. Unfortunately, (as you might have noticed!) we do not live in a perfect world. We cannot always believe everything we hear. Everyone does not seek our wellbeing. A person is not necessarily our friend. What appears harmless or good, may, in fact, not be. We have not been promised a problem-free, deception-free, distraction-free earthly life.

Still, like He did with Israel in today’s Scripture, God has prepared us to survive this crazy world….

In Every Thing Give Thanks

Thursday, November 23, 2023

“In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 KJV).

Dear saints, take a moment this Thanksgiving to learn a valuable lesson from the Holy Scriptures!

God wants “all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3,4). To be “saved” here means you have been rescued from the penalty of sin (hell and the lake of fire), and that you have a home in heaven, because you have trusted the death, shed blood, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as sufficient payment for your sins. To “come unto the knowledge of the truth” is when a person who has trusted Christ, begins to understand why God saved him or her, and how God will use him or her for His glory. Although soul salvation is instantaneous, spiritual maturity is a life-long process (that is especially true regarding handling difficulties, the grace way!).

It is human nature to avoid difficulties and stress, to flee them, rather than confront them. This self-preservation is advantageous, particularly in “life or death” situations. However, running from troubling circumstances is not the way God has designed our life in Christ to function. Today’s Scripture says, “In every thing give thanks,” not “For every thing give thanks.” We do not thank God for our troubles; we thank God while we are enduring those troubles. This is tough, I know, but it takes time for us to learn it. Even the Apostle Paul had to learn this.

“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:11-13).

Be thankful in every thing. God’s grace is sufficient for you, dear saint, in all of life’s circumstances. When you learn this, you are “[coming] unto the knowledge of the truth.”

*Excerpted from our Thanksgiving 2012 Bible study with the same name. That study can be read here or watched here.

You may also see, “What are our spiritual blessings in Christ?”

Ignorance Preferred—and Granted!

Tuesday, November 21, 2023

“But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant” (1 Corinthians 14:38 KJV).

If ignorance is preferred, it must be granted!

Recently, a Christian coworker in ministry told me how he has been reaching a long-time friend with the Gospel of Grace. For nearly three years now, he has shared Bible verses with her—to no avail. She maintains she does not understand what he is trying to teach her. Also, she relentlessly expresses her desire to stay in her works-religion cult. He asked me why the Holy Spirit is not working to open her eyes and cause her to see her need for Jesus Christ. In fact, he is frustrated with the whole matter, even contemplating breaking off contact with her.

The Scriptures are very simple, friends. If we have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Saviour, the Holy Spirit lives in us. “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” (1 Corinthians 6:19). We carry the Holy Ghost around with us, and, as we walk by faith in God’s words to us (Romans through Philemon), He Himself works in us. How silly we are if we wonder if God ever “opens the eyes” of those we reach!

Furthermore, when we share His inspired words with others—the Scriptures the Holy Spirit wrote—He will illuminate those souls. “Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ” (Ephesians 3:4). “Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things” (2 Timothy 2:7). If we want to know the truth, we will know it. The Holy Spirit gives us light and comprehension through His words, but we must be willing to let our eyes be opened and be willing to keep them opened. If the will to learn is absent, if the desire to be corrected is lacking, what is left is willful ignorance. It is not that the Holy Spirit failed to work, but rather the audience consciously refused His work. We must (!!!) respect free will!

The Greatest Veteran

Saturday, November 11, 2023

“Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; and having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it” (Colossians 2:14,15 KJV).

Today is Veterans’ Day in the United States, so let us especially thank the “Greatest Veteran of All Time.”

We thank veterans, living and departed, the often-forgotten men and women who risked their lives to secure our freedom. Just as we remember flesh-and-blood veterans who fought for our physical liberty, we reserve our worship and utmost respect for the least esteemed Veteran, He who secured our spiritual liberty.

“But thanks be to God, which giveth us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). Through Christ’s finished crosswork on Calvary, we have eternal victory over sin, death, hell, and Satan. Everything that God has planned for us is dependent upon Christ’s victory at Calvary.

Jesus Christ nailed the Mosaic Law to His cross (today’s Scripture). His sinless blood covered our failure to obey God’s laws; Jesus’ righteousness annulled our unrighteousness (sin). Christ not only liberated us from sin and its penalty (the everlasting lake of fire), but today’s Scripture affirms He also triumphed over Satan himself!

Christ has “spoiled [destroyed] principalities and powers [Satan’s power], he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it [His cross].” Jesus Christ destroyed Satan’s plans. Through Christ’s cross, God has “delivered us from the power of darkness” (Colossians 1:13), Satan’s evil system of Ephesians 2:1-3.

During a recent cemetery visit, I noticed American flags flying above deceased veterans’ headstones. These individuals can no longer hear or regard our thanks, but Jesus Christ’s body is not decaying in some tomb. If there ever was a Veteran most worthy of our gratitude, it is our Lord Jesus Christ. Though He died in battle, allowing Himself to be executed on a Roman cross of shame and scorn, He resurrected. He is alive and well today, alive forevermore!

Saints, eternity will ring with our thanks to the Veteran worth thanking, the Lord Jesus Christ.

*Adapted from our 2010 Bible study, “The Greatest Hero.” The Bible study video can be viewed here.

Arrayed in Hypocrisy

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

“Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity” (Matthew 23:27,28 KJV).

“Looks can be deceiving” is not only true during Halloweentime, but confirmed year-round within Christendom.

Today is Halloween, when children dress up and feign themselves to be creatures they are not. Likewise, many church leaders today wear “Christian” garbs, but their ministries do not bring the Lord Jesus Christ glory and honor. They promote their denomination, and seek to perpetuate it, rather than serve and exalt the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible manifests these who appear to be good, as “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

In today’s Scripture, Jesus Christ exposed Israel’s corrupt religious leaders who misled the nation in His day. In His Parable of the Tares, Matthew 13:24-30,37-43, Christ explained how just as He had sown good seed (wheat, believing Jews) in Israel, Satan had also sown tares/weeds (unbelieving Jews). Tares resemble wheat; unbelieving Jews resemble believing Jews. The unbelieving Pharisees and scribes, for instance, looked like God’s people (believing Israel). Judas Iscariot was another example of Satan’s tares—the apostles never realized who Judas really was until it was too late!

But Satan’s counterfeit believers are not confined to Israel’s program. Today, within local assemblies of the Body of Christ, there are people feigning themselves to be Christians: “For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works” (2 Corinthians 11:13-15).

Beloved, beware of the church leaders who are arrayed in hypocrisy, “and avoid them” (Romans 16:17b). If their teaching does not agree with the rightly divided King James Bible, you have no business as a child of God to be listening to them.

*This is excerpted from a larger Bible study with the same name. The Bible study can be read here or watched here.

You may also see our special study, “Should Christians celebrate Halloween?” In addition, “What does the Bible say about ghosts?”

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #8

Monday, October 30, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

It is human nature to strive to be at the center of attention (note well how “sin” and “pride” both share the same middle letter!). We seek to believe and do whatever we want, so we turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to God’s words (the very words that describe what He believes and does). That was unbelieving Israel’s chief problem in today’s Scripture. How hard they tried—how hard they tried!!—to eliminate their “competitor” in “ministry.” It was just an exercise in futility, which they begrudgingly admitted and know well even now 20 centuries later.

“Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him.” No matter what those religious leaders attempted to do to silence Him, or how underhanded they were in bringing it to pass, the Lord Jesus was still popular with the common Jewish people. Nevertheless, these “religious teachers” would not and did not submit to Messiah. Instead, they kept pursuing that line of wishful thinking that they could rid themselves and their nation, once and for all, of this “Troublemaker!”

No doubt they murdered Jesus their Messiah or Christ. It was premeditated, carefully planned and carried out. What else could they do to ensure their religious machine—their religious organization controlling the nation—would survive? Even now, the people of our world scheme to accomplish their own words and works. In some way or another, they hope to save themselves without the God of the Bible, without Christianity, without Holy Scripture. May they listen well! “Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end. There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand” (Proverbs 19:20,21).

Just as the Lord Jesus Christ came back from the dead totally victorious, He will come back to our fallen world completely triumphant! “For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #7

Sunday, October 29, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

In Acts chapter 5, while the Sanhedrin members consider killing Christ’s Apostles, a dissenting or disagreeing voice interjects: “[34] Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; [35] And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men. [36] For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought. [37] After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed. [38] And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: [39] But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

Gamaliel—a well-known rabbi or Jewish teacher even now (2,000 years later!)—was willing to give the Apostles the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they really were serving the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He was thus open to sparing their lives, and they were delivered from execution (read verses 40-42). If they were following a false “messiah”—who were multiplied during that time, including Theudas and Judas of Galilee (verses 36,37)—the movement would be manmade and thus fizzle. However, Gamaliel might have had some spiritual light from Joseph of Arimathaea or Nicodemus, his Messianic Jewish colleagues of the Sanhedrin (Mark 15:43; Luke 23:50,51; John 3:1,2; John 7:45-53). Not necessarily a believer, Gamaliel was nevertheless quite right in warning, “But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”

Let us summarize and conclude this devotionals arc….

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #6

Saturday, October 28, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

The same religious leaders who had so viciously opposed and killed the Lord Jesus kept violently resisting Him in resurrection as His Little Flock (filled with the Holy Ghost) conducted their ministry during the early Acts period. Sermon after sermon is preached to call Israel to repentance (change in mind) and faith (in Jesus as Christ/Messiah). The response is overwhelmingly negative, with just a believing remnant. By the time of chapter 5, the Apostles, having been imprisoned and subsequently freed by the angel of the Lord, are now recaptured and on trial before the Sanhedrin (Jewish Supreme Court).

We read in chapter 5 of Acts: “[25] Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people. [26] Then went the captain with the officers [the Jerusalem Temple police!], and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. [27] And when they had brought them, they set them before the council [Sanhedrin]: and the high priest asked them, [28] Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.

“[29] Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. [30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. [31] Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. [32] And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him. [33] When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.”

Let us see if the Apostles will live or die….

Perceive Ye How Ye Prevail Nothing? #5

Friday, October 27, 2023

“The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:19 KJV).

Behold, the lamentation of professional religious leaders whose system is in jeopardy!

Read the Parable of the Wicked Husbandmen in Matthew 21:33-46, Mark 12:1-12, and Luke 20:9-20. Jesus spoke those words to Israel’s apostate religious leaders just two days before they put Him to death. He announced—to their surprise, no doubt!—that He knew very well how they were conniving to murder Him. Like selfish farmers who refused to give the vineyard over to the Owner’s Son, they wanted to keep their positions of power instead of relinquishing the nation’s government to Him (God’s Son)!

Church leaders need to be especially careful they do not turn into such individuals who are “drunk on power.” They can become so irrationally obsessed with controlling people that, eventually, it is no longer the Holy Spirit guiding the assembly but the minister’s flesh (someone’s scholarship, opinions, hunches, speculations). Unless it teaches or endorses something they want to believe or promote, the Holy Bible is set aside. The denominational hierarchy cares more about perpetuating longtime traditions than sound Bible doctrine. This was the Judaism of Christ’s earthly ministry, and it is the Judaism even now. They are more familiar with manmade ideas (“interpretations of verses”) than they are with actual Bible verses. Christendom is just as corrupt, deceived, and immature in Scripture.

Do not think it farfetched, dear friend, that there are people in “Christian ministry” (HA!) right now who would, like ancient Israel’s spiritual leaders, kill Jesus Christ in a heartbeat if it meant saving their false theological system from exposure, ruin, or obliteration. He is not here physically, but we are, and how they shamefully treat us is how they would handle Him if He were here because He is in us by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit (and this they do not like!). Like Him, we are outcasts. The world does not want us. The denominations do not want us. Let them fight us, for they without the rightly divided Scripture will—like ancient Israel’s stubborn religious leaders—prevail nothing in the grand scheme of things….